Young Offenders

Justine Greening:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many young offenders in custody committed (a) acts of self-harm and (b) suicide in each year since 2001. [126090]

Mr. Sutcliffe:
The exact information requested is not available. The table provides estimates in respect of those aged 18 to 20 inclusive derived from a national recording system of each incident of self-harm, the majority of which are minor. The improved system was only introduced in 2003 and figures before this time should not be compared directly with those since that date.

The Home Office definition of prisoner self-inflicted deaths is broader than the legal definition of suicide and includes all deaths where it appears that a prisoner has acted specifically to take their own life. Annual figures may change slightly as inquest verdicts and other information becomes available, although the figures presented here are a fair reflection of the number of self-inflicted deaths among young offenders.

Number of offenders aged 18 to 20 who self-harmed

Number self-inflicted deaths of offenders aged 18 to 20

2001(1)

707

10

2002(1)

694

12

2003

950

11

2004

996

6

2005

1,079

10

2006

1,138

2

(1) Not comparable to later years due to change in reporting system.

Justine Greening:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many supervision orders with conditions were (a) issued to and (b) breached by young offenders aged 18 years and under in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement; [126104]

(2) how many curfew orders were (a) issued to and (b) breached by young offenders aged 18 years and under in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement; [126105]

(3) how many community punishment and rehabilitation orders were (a) issued to and (b) breached by young offenders aged 18 years and under in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement; [126106]

(4) how many community punishment orders were (a) issued to and (b) breached by young offenders aged 18 years and under in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement; [126107]

27 Mar 2007 : Column 1461W

(5) how many detention and training orders were (a) issued to and (b) breached by offenders aged 18 years and under in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement; [126110]

(6) how many (a) reparation orders, (b) action plan orders and (c) attendance centre orders were (i) issued to and (ii) breached by young offenders aged 18 years or under in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement; [126112]

(7) how many supervision orders without conditions were (a) issued to and (b) breached by young offenders aged 18 or under in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement; [126139]

(8) how many drug treatment and testing orders were (a) issued to and (b) breached by offenders aged 18 years and under in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement. [126103]

Mr. Sutcliffe:
For sentencing purposes, juveniles are defined as being aged 17 and under; 18-year-olds are treated as adults. This response therefore is confined to young offenders aged 10 to 17 in the interest of clarity.

Statistics on sentencing of young offenders (persons aged 10 to 17) are published in Sentencing Statistics 2005 (Home Office Statistical Bulletin No. 03/07), a copy of which is in the Library.

Table 2.8 on page 42 includes numbers of detention and training orders made and Table 3.7 on page 70 includes number of drug treatment and testing orders, supervision orders, curfew orders, community punishment and rehabilitation orders, community punishment orders, reparation orders, action plan orders and attendance centre orders made.

Although care is taken in collating and analysing the returns used to compile the figures in this publication, the data are of necessity subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. Consequently, although figures are shown to the last digit in order to provide a comprehensive record of the information collected, they are not necessarily accurate to the last digit shown.

The bulletin referred to is also available on the Home Office website at:

Supervision orders with and without conditions are not published separately due to data quality problems, and in relation to statistics on breaches of all these orders, quality checks have shown that breach data are unsuitable for publication. Statistics on breaches can therefore only be published when significant improvements have been made to the submissions of these data to the Home Office.

Young Offenders: Foreigners

Dr. Cable:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many and what percentage of prisoners in young offender institutions are foreign nationals, broken down by nationality. [126881]

Mr. Sutcliffe [holding answer 14 March 2007]:At the end of January 2007 8 per cent. of all prisoners held in young offender and juvenile institutions were foreign nationals. Information on their nationalities can be found in the following table.

27 Mar 2007 : Column 1462W

These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Foreign national prisoners held within young offender and juvenile institutions as at 31 January 2007

Number

All(1)

690

Total other

1

Afghanistan

4

Albania

12

Algeria

5

Angola

5

Australia

1

Bangladesh

16

Bosnia-Herzegovina

2

Botswana

1

Bulgaria

1

Burundi

2

Cameroon, United Republic

2

Canada

1

Central African Republic

1

Chile

1

China

7

Columbia

4

Congo

10

Congo, Democratic Republic

9

Czech Republic

3

Dominican Republic

1

Ecuador

1

Estonia

4

Ethiopia

10

France

9

French Guyana

1

Gambia

3

Georgia

1

Germany

3

Ghana

3

Grenada

1

Guatemala

2

Guinea

2

Guyana

2

Hong Kong

1

India

6

Iran

14

Iraq

19

Irish Republic

39

Italy

2

Ivory Coast

6

Jamaica

85

Jordan

1

Kazakhstan

1

Kenya

4

Kuwait

1

Latvia

3

Lebanon

1

Liberia

2

Libya

1

Lithuania

6

Macedonia

2

Moldova

9

Montserrat

3

Morocco

1

Netherlands

11

27 Mar 2007 : Column 1463W

Netherlands Antilles

2

New Zealand

1

Niger

1

Nigeria

33

Pakistan

24

Philippines

1

Poland

16

Portugal

16

Qatar

1

Romania

15

Russia

5

Rwanda

5

Saudi Arabia

6

Serbia and Montenegro

13

Sierre Leone

12

Somalia

78

South Africa

14

Spain

1

Sri Lanka

3

St. Lucia

2

Sudan

4

Sweden

2

Syrian Arab Republic

2

Tanzania

2

Thailand

1

Togo

1

Trinidad and Tobago

5

Turkey

10

Uganda

14

United Arab Emirates

1

United States of America

6

Venezuela

1

Vietnam

17

Zambia

1

Zimbabwe

19

(1) Where figures in the table have been rounded to the nearest whole number, the rounded components do not always add up to the totals which are calculated and rounded independently.